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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Frenzied, Bloody Struggle Reconstructed By Coroner

New York Times

Nicole Brown Simpson apparently faced her killer and put up a fight before he viciously slashed her throat, the Los Angeles County chief coroner told the jury Wednesday, reconstructing minute-by-minute the frenzied, bloody struggle that preceded the victim’s death.

The coroner, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran, also told jurors that once Mrs. Simpson was on the ground, probably unconscious, her assailant could have turned his attention to her friend, Ronald Goldman, and then returned to cut Mrs. Simpson’s throat. Her death was quick but not instantaneous, Sathyavagiswaran said.

“I would say she died within a few minutes, probably much less than a minute,” Sathyavagiswaran said, speaking in calm and somber terms as photographs of the murder victims were displayed for jurors on a board. “She would have gone into rapid shock with this massive injury.”

In contrast to Tuesday’s court session, when O.J. Simpson appeared visibly distressed by the photographs, wincing and clenching his jaw although the photographs were positioned in such a way that he could not see them, Wednesday he seemed almost upbeat. He chatted amiably with one of his lawyers.

And while some of the jurors Tuesday appeared stunned by the autopsy photographs, Wednesday most of them examined the evidence with dispassionate, clinical curiosity.